Voti
by Makemegray
Summary: The first time Sawada Tsunayoshi took a person’s like he was twenty-five and in a state of catatonia for more than an three days afterwards,a swiftly-applied tonfa to the back of the head the only thing able to bring him out of it. Warning:Character death


**Disclaimer: Do I really need to add this? We all know that I don't, otherwise I wouldn't be writing it here. **

_Title: _**Voti **(Vows)

_Characters/pairings: La famiglia di Vongola/ 8059 and D18, both if tilt your head 27 degrees. _

_Warnings: Character death, Sadism...Er...well...the standard stuff..._

_Words/pages:_ 2,798/ 6

* * *

The first time Sawada Tsunayoshi took a person's like he was twenty-five and in a state of catatonia for more than an three days afterwards, a swiftly-applied tonfa

to the back of the head the only thing able to bring him out of it and only then because it had knocked him unconscious.

In the twelve years since he'd first been introduced to Reborn, he'd used his dying will to ensure that he never caused his enemies permanent damage.

And his guardians were there to ensure that he never had to.

**_The wind; one that fiercely blows away everything._**

The first time Gokudera Hayato had killed someone, he was eleven years old.

He was eleven and taking a pledge to the Vongola, to the Kyuudaime and doing so meant that he had to sever ties with the family he had been born into. With his father and with his sister (despite that she made no such vow and refused to sever ties with him).

He was eleven when he tossed away his heritage and decided that he was fine with Shamal being unwilling to teach him to use the Trident Mosquito, because in reality, dynamite was much more effective and something about the smell of nitro in the early morning just seemed to calm him more than an annoying buzzing would have.

He was eleven when he was first shot and when he smoked his first cigarette, a leftover from the pack of his father's right-hand man, who had smoked and laughed while he shot at his boss's half-breed son and when he blown to bits by a stick that he missed disarming.

He looked at death as a necessary evil. Part and parcel of the life that he had been born into and the life he'd embraced with enthusiasm every moment since.

For twelve years, he'd done everything in powers to make sure that the Jyuudaime would never have to embraced that particular part of Mafia life.

He was twenty-five when he failed.

**_The rain; one that washes away everything._**

Yamamoto Takeshi was sixteen the first time he took another person's life.

He was sixteen and was starting to get the hint that Gokudera had been trying to pound into his head since middle.

It wasn't until he felt the drag of his katana slicing through a spinal column that the truth sunk into him like he'd sunk Shigure-Kintoki into his victim's neck.

He'd always known of course, somewhere in the back of his mind, but it was something like a state of a Tsuna-esque state of horrified denial that kept his laugh light, expressions carefree and comments unassuming and unusually dense.

He was sixteen and it had been the first time that someone had thought about killing Tsuna with a mundane weapon. Guns were old oats by this point but it didn't make the danger any less real, as that future they'd prevented had shown.

Behind the cover of an alleyway dumpsters after the first shots, he and Gokudera had bickered briefly about who was going to take the would-be assassin, instantly shooting Tsuna down when he volunteered--The first thing they had agreed on in months.

Yamamoto won by default when Reborn pointed out that they were in a residential area and even part of the Sistema C.A.I. would do more damage than the Vongola were willing to foot.

He was sixteen when he first decapitated a man, ignoring the stinging of his shoulder as he released his sword to perform Samidare.

He laughed and scratched the back of his head while Tsuna freaked and fainted. Gokudera lit another cigarette and Reborn informed them that someone would take care of the corpse later.

His father congratulated him when he returned home covered in blood (The majority of it not his own) and slapped him on the back, proud as any parent could be.

"The Shigure Souen-ryuu was designed to kill. You can't be naive enough to have assumed that using the flat of the blade would work forever." His father had commented,

Later, he realized that he'd realize that he'd been in shock since the incident.

Later was when he opened the door to a familiar cloud of foul smelling smoke and a grudgingly mumbled inquiry of concern.

He was sixteen and it was the first time he'd cried in front of anyone since his mother's funeral.

He would later adopt the philosophy that killing should be avoided at all possible costs and came up with three forms of the Shigure Souen-ryuu that used the flat of his blade, designed to incapacitate an enemy rather than kill outright.

For the next nine years, he'd done everything in his power to ensure that Tsuna would never have to make such alterations to his fighting style, would never have to seriously cry in front of anyone.

He was twenty-five when he failed in both of those tasks.

**_The sun; one that illuminates the sky._**

Sasagawa Ryouhei was twenty years old the first time he took a person's life. Unintentionally.

His range of attack was limited and he knew how to pull his punches when it mattered and was sensible enough to know when there was no way to avoid sticking at full force. He was the only Guardian that didn't fight with a weapon and that gave him certain advantages and disadvantages.

He was twenty when he defeated a low level foot soldier from a rival family, who'd been ordered to stab Tsuna in the back at a crowded festival, with a solid punch to the face, shattering the front half of his skull.

He was twenty when he realized that he was the only Guardian capable of doing something like that as he watched even Hibari look at him in shock (so much as slightly wider eyes conveyed the prefects reaction)

He'd never seen Tsuna flip out quite that much before...

And never before had he had the extreme urge to join him in his episode...

It wasn't until Kyoko commented on it that he realized that he'd stopped eating and had stopped doing...pretty much anything, when he realized that the guilt was getting to him more than he had thought it would.

He was twenty when he was tempted to check himself into a mental hospital and decided that some extremely, serious training was needed before he let that behavior take hold and he ended up a psycho like the rest of the mafia seemed to be.

"Just because you have that kind of power doesn't mean you have to use it, kora!" Colonello had told him early on, with a swift kick to the head, and somehow he'd forgotten that important lesson over the course of the years. Forgotten it to the Extreme.

Now that he remembered, he was going to make sure that he always remembered, had a constant reminder tattooed down his arm.

He spent the next eight years doing everything in his power to make sure that Tsuna would never have to re-learn that lesson and would never have that guilt eat him so badly that he forgot about everything else.

He was twenty-seven when he failed.

**_The lightning; one that harshly strikes everything._**

The first time Bovino Lambo took another person's life, he was seven.

At the time, he had believed it was a game and that the great Lambo-san had finally triumphed over the evils of the world and had proved that he was more worthy to serve as Tsuna's right-hand man than that asshole Gokudera or the yakyuu-baka.

He was seven and he thought it was a game and he thought he'd finally proved his worth and that everyone would have to take him seriously now and that Tsuna would never doubt his abilities again.

Until he got a look at Tsuna's reaction. And the one expression he'd never seen Tsuna direct at him and the one that made him feel like a 5 year old all over again, in the future, being yelled at by his boss for being too loud in the base.

He was seven when he realized that Tsuna was actually disappointed in him for taking such an extreme action and he basically disapproved of every thought that had run through Lambo's head the moment the enemy had stopped breathing.

He was seven when he overheard Tsuna talking to Gokudera and Yamamoto (his right and left hands); about whether finding another Thunder guardian was better in the long run for everyone, especially Lambo who was obviously not ready for the responsibility. Maybe in another ten years or so, when he wasn't overdoing it and being proud of being a juvenile serial killer.

They agreed. Vehemently.

He was seven when he realized that yet another family was getting ready to ship him off and when he realized that maybe, just maybe he ought to tone down his behavior considerably.

He spent the next ten years doing everything in his power to make sure that Tsuna would never be disappointed in him again. Making sure that Tsuna would never consider sending him away again and making sure that he earned the right to be called the Vongola Guardian of Thunder.

He was seventeen when he was pretty sure that he had failed in all of those accounts.

**_The floating cloud; one that cannot be caught and goes its own way._**

Hibari Kyouya was eighteen and couldn't remember how old he was when he had first killed someone.

By this point, he couldn't remember how many people he had killed or how many he had made wish that he had killed them.

He was eighteen when Dino asked him to recall the incident, he was feeling particularly sated and didn't give much thought to answering before commenting indecisively about it.

Tsuna didn't panic, just paled a little and mumbled something along the lines 'it figures' and wasn't given the opportunity to speak up before purple flames flared.

All he remembered about the incident was the feeling afterwards. The feeling of watching a person's life fading away due to his own actions. It was a feeling akin to a high to Hibari that he would never get tired of and never forget for as long as he would live and one he would certainly seek out at every available opportunity as long as he had the willpower to force his body to move.

He lived for that feeling and would never stop chasing it.

When asked what it was that held his appeal in taking someone's life, he smirked and offered to give a demonstration which Tsuna immediately rejected.

He was eighteen and knew that his purpose in life was to chase that feeling because it was one of the few things that made him feel _anything_ anymore and all the others that did were ultimately eventually linking to killing.

He spent the next nine years doing everything in his power to keep that feeling to himself. To ensure that the one person who might be able to snatch that feeling out of his hands never got the chance to.

He was twenty-nine when he failed.

**_The illusion; one that cannot be captured._**

Rokudou Mukuro was twenty-seven years old the first time he killed a person. With his own hands.

He'd caused the deaths of countless people through the means of other people's hands but it wasn't until he watched his victim's life ebb away as his hands tightened ever around their neck that he understood what Hibari lived for. What Yamamoto avoided at all costs, what Gokudera was resigned to, what Lambo was more or less ambivalent about and what Sasagawa seemed extremely guilty for. What Chrome was terrified of.

She'd been the instrument for his murders for the longest but when the Vongola had finally managed to convince Vendicare to release Mukuro into their custody. While he'd really had no use for her at that point, he continued to keep her alive in order to handle the more social or formal duties of the Guardian of the Mist, while he served his own purposes and played spy for the Vongola as long he found it amusing or as long as it suited him.

He was twenty-seven years old when it ceased to suit him and when he realized that he'd playing to the mafia's fiddle all of his life, even when he had assumed that he was following his own path, creating his own destiny.

He was twenty-seven and even though he realized that just the very act of him thinking that was probably also playing into the mafia's plans, he didn't care, he knew that damned arcobaleno had foreseen and planned everything out decades in advance and had foreseen this coming the moment Sawada Iemitsu had expressed interest in making him the Mist Guardian.

He was twenty-seven and he realized that he might as well just accept it by now and do what everyone expected him to do in the first place. Because really, did he know any better? Not according to the vast majority of the population, save for the very few who had placed their trust in them.

He was twenty-seven and he decided that he was going to make good on his threats and started off by eliminating those who he didn't particularly want to leave to the mercy of the Vongola when he was through with them. He forced Ken and Chikusa to kill off each other, still unwilling to sully his own hands just yet. He let Chromes illusory organs fade and when she proved that she now equaled him in power by rebuilding them herself, he wrapped his hands around that pretty little throat of her and squeezed...

And vowed never to be the staring up at their killer with that _look_ in their eyes. The one he would need centuries and 15 languages to describe accurately.

He spent the next three months doing everything in his power to keep that goal.

He was twenty-eight when he failed.

**_The sky; one that colors and engulfs everything._**

The first time Sawada Tsunayoshi took a person's like he was twenty-five and in a state of catatonia for more than an three days afterwards, a swiftly-applied tonfa to the back of the head the only thing able to bring him out of it and only then because it had knocked him unconscious.

When he came to, he was in his bed at the Vongola estate in Italy and he figured he had about twenty minutes before his family came to check on him. Twenty minutes to settle his thoughts, calm his emotions, think about the situation rationally like everyone had been screaming at him to do and to wash his hands of the blood of one of those he had literally trusted with his life.

He was twenty-five and his greatest wish as he made his way into the bathroom and turned on the faucet, reaching under the sink for the bleach, was that he had met the people he lived with under any other possibly circumstances than the one that had caused one of their own to betray them so utterly.

He underestimated how worried his guardians were and had to fight Gokudera, Yamamoto, and Sasagawa for the bleach when they heard the water running.

He took Reborn's kick to the solar-plexus and the claims that it wasn't his fault and that he had no choice and waved them away, rationalizing that he'd been put in a possible situation.

He was resigned to the fact that it had been an inevitable conclusion. One that he has seen the evening of the battle for the Mist Ring. He'd known the day would come when he would be forced to deal with the inevitability, he just didn't realize it would be so soon.

He cried, in front of all the members of his family, seriously cried, not one of whining fits, and vowed to modify his techniques to make them even more death-proof for those who he was forced to fight against.

All of it was his fault in the end, he was the guilty one for not seeing the unraveling of that part of the family and not doing something to prevent it sooner.

He was disappointed that he'd immediately jumped to the most convenient way to solve the problem and hadn't taken the time to think it through.

That feeling, as he watched Mukuro's last moments, ending on his trademark laugh and a cloud of mist, was something he never wanted to experience again. And more than that, ensuring that his guardians would never be forced to either.

From either side.

He spent the rest of his life doing everything in his power ensuring that his vows were kept.

He failed.

**Author's Notes: **Without a doubt, that is the angstiest and darkest thing that I have ever written and it scared me a little. Some of the parts didn't come out as polished as I would have liked, and I may redo them in the future through the progress of the series and the development of the characters but this is how it stands now. I just depressed myself; sorry if anyone else was also.


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